An ounce of prevention

Are you dating an abuser?

Emotional abuse, verbal abuse, and domestic violence are on the rise, especially among young people. The risk of falling into an abusive relationship is greater than ever.
There are obvious red flags to avoid in a prospective lover, such as angry, controlling, possessive, jealous, or violent behavior. Unfortunately, most abusers are able to mask these tendencies in dating. By the time many people notice the obvious red flags, they're already attached to an abuser, which makes it much harder for them to leave the relationship.

More useful than a list of obvious red flags are guidelines based on very early warning signs of a potentially abusive relationship, signs that are visible before an attachment bond is formed. The following is a list of qualities to look for in a potential lover. Avoid them at all costs.

Note: During the early stages of your relationship, your partner is not likely to do any of these things to you. But witnessing these attitudes and behaviors toward others is a sure sign that they will turn onto you, sooner or later.


Very Early Warning Sign #1: A Blamer

Avoid anyone who blames his negative feelings and bad luck on someone else. Special care is necessary here, as blamers can be really seductive in dating. Their blame of others can make you look great by comparison:

"You're so smart, sensitive, caring, and loving, not like that bitch I used to go out with."

"Why couldn't I have met you before that self-centered, greedy, woman I used to date?"

"You're so calm and together, and she was so crazy and paranoid."

Hearing this kind of thing might make you think that all he really needs is the understanding and love of a good woman to change his luck. This disastrous assumption flies in the face of the Law of Blame.

The Law of Blame: It eventually goes to the closest person.


When you become the closest person to him, the blame will certainly turn on you.

Blamers can be dangerous to love because they usually suffer from victim identity. Feeling like victims, they see themselves as justified in whatever retaliation they enact and whatever compensation they take. Blamers will certainly cause pain for you if you come to love one.

Very Early Warning Sign #2: Resentment

Resentment is a negative mood caused by focus on perceptions of unfairness. Resentful people feel like they are not getting the help, consideration, praise, reward, or affection they believe is due them.

Everyone has to put up with a certain amount of unfairness in life. We don't like it, but we deal with it and move on; we try to improve our situations and our experiences. The resentful waste their emotional energy by dwelling on the unfairness of others (while remaining oblivious to their own unfairness). They think (mistakenly) that they don't know how to improve their lives. They use resentment as a defense against a sense of failure or inadequacy.

Resentful people are so caught up in their "rights" and so locked into their own perspectives that they become completely insensitive to the rights and perspectives of others. If you fall in love with a resentful person, you will eventually become the brunt of that resentment and almost certainly feel shut out and diminished in the relationship.

Very Early Warning Sign #3: Entitlement

People with a sense of entitlement believe that they deserve special consideration and special treatment. They may cut in front of others waiting in line, smoke wherever they want, drive any way they want, say anything they like, and do pretty much anything they choose.

Driven by high standards of what they should get and what other people should do for them, the entitled feel chronically disappointed and offended. So it seems only fair, from their myopic perspectives, that they get compensation for their constant frustrations. Special consideration seems like so little to ask! Here's the logic:

"It's so hard being me, I shouldn't have to wait in line, too!"

"With all I have to put up with, I deserve to take a few supplies from the office."

"With the kind of day I had, you expect me to mow the lawn?"

"All the taxes I pay, and they bother me about this little deduction!"

"The way I hit the golf ball, I should get the best seat in the restaurant!"

"I'm the man; you have to cook my dinner!"

After the glow of infatuation wears off, the entitled person will regard his feelings and desire as more important than yours. If you agree, you'll get depressed. If you disagree, you'll get abused.

Very Early Warning Sign #4: Superiority

Superiority is the implication, at least through body language or tone of voice, that someone is better than someone else. Potential abusers tend to have hierarchical self-esteem, i.e., they need to feel better than someone else to feel okay about themselves. They need to point out ways in which they are smarter, more sensitive, or more talented than others. This, too, can be seductive in dating, as he will point out ways in which you are superior, too.

The most abusive form of hierarchical self-esteem is predatory self-esteem. To feel good about themselves, persons with predatory self-esteem need to make other people feel bad about themselves. Many will test high in self-esteem when they come for court-ordered treatment, while everyone else in their family tests low. But once intervention increases the self-esteem of the emotionally beaten-down spouse and children who then no longer internalize the put-downs, the predator's self-esteem invariably declines.

A variation on this very early warning sign is self-righteousness. If you dare to disagree with him, you will not only be wrong but immoral!

Very Early Warning Sign #5: Pettiness

If he makes a big deal out of nothing or focuses on one small, negative aspect of an issue, a relationship with him will be disastrous. This might show itself as being extremely particular about how his food is prepared in a restaurant or seeming impatient if someone drops something.

In a love relationship, his petty attitudes and behavior will make you feel reduced to some small mistake, as if nothing you have ever done right in your life matters. You will feel criticized and diminished for the smallest of infractions, real or imagined.

Very Early Warning Sign #6: Sarcasm

Sarcasm comes in many forms. Sometimes it's just poorly-timed humor - saying the wrong thing in the wrong context. Sometimes it's innocently insensitive, with no intention to hurt or offend. More often it is hostile and meant to devalue. The purpose is to undermine a perspective the sarcastic person doesn't agree with or to shake someone's confidence, just for a temporary ego gain or some strategic advantage in a negotiation.

Sarcastic people tend to be heavy into impression management, always trying to sound smart or witty. Their tone always has at least a subtle put-down in it. In dating this will be directed at others. In a relationship, it will center on you.

Very Early Warning Sign #7: Deceit (intentional and unintentional)

Unintentional deceit happens all the time in dating, due to what I call the "dating self."

We all try to put on the best face possible in dating. Most of us will exaggerate our good qualities at least a little, if we think the other person will like us more if we were just a bit more like that. "Oh, you're religious? Well I've been feeling a bit more spiritual lately, so I'm going right home and read the Bible, or at least watch the movie version."

This kind of unintentional exaggeration is meant less to deceive than to motivate the self. The exaggerator really wants to develop qualities you like; he's just not quite there, yet.

Of course, the dating self often includes blatant deception, as in, "Oh, did I tell you that I went to Harvard?" or, "Yes, I know some rich and famous people." Deceit shows a low level of self-respect -- and respect for you -- that can only bode ill in a relationship.

Very Early Warning Sign #8: Minor Jealousy

Minor jealousy does not come off like the obvious red flag of controlling and possessive behavior. It looks more like this: He's slightly uncomfortable when you talk to or even look at another man. He might not say anything, but he looks uncomfortable.

The tough thing about minor jealousy in dating is that you actually want a tiny bit of it to know that they other person cares. (You certainly don't want to love someone who wouldn't mind at all if you slept with the entire football team.) But a little bit of jealousy goes a long, long way. Think of it as a drop of powerfully concentrated liquid in a huge bucket of water. More than a tiny drop will poison any relationship you might develop with the jealous person and, more important, put you in harm's way.


Even minor jealousy has the potential to be harmful. Jealousy becomes dangerous once it turns into obsession. The more we obsess about something, the more imagination takes over, distorting reality and rational thinking. Jealousy is the only naturally occurring emotion that can cause psychosis, which is the inability to tell what is really happening from what is in your head. Most severe violence in relationships involves some form of jealousy.

Very Early Warning Sign #9: Rusher

Guys who go "too fast" (defined as whatever makes you uncomfortable), do not respect boundaries. One definition of "abuse" is "that which violates personal boundaries." It is not flattering that someone wants you so much that he does not care about whether you are comfortable. Make sure that any man you become interested in shows respect for your comfort-level, in all senses of the word.

Reference: Psychology Today

Easter Weekend 2009

I don't want to hear it. I know I've been a little... absent lately. I'm back with a lot of pictures from this weekend. On Saturday Ellie attended her first Easter Egg Hunt. My parents joined us at the annual Easter party was at Lakewood on Saturday morning and when Ellie first got there, she was hesitant because of all of the commotion. But when she got outside at the hunt she came to life and knew just what to do. The Easter egg hunt was at the driving range and her age category was 4 and under. We had to show her that she was supposed to pick up the eggs and put them in the basket, but she caught on really quickly and started picking them up.

After the hunt, Ellie spent some time at the bunny petting zoo and with the giant Peter Cotton Tail. Lee's parents joined all of us for a late lunch and then Ellie enjoyed a 2.5 hour nap.

We celebrated Easter by going to the 9AM service at our church with my parents. Ellie was really good the entire time which... was a change from the previous week. But in Ellie's defense, last weekend was Palm Sunday so the service lasted forever. Forever for a toddler is longer than 5 minutes especially when they're supposed to be sitting still and quiet. We came back to the house for a while after the service and then met the Brights at the Petroleum Club for brunch. I had one tired kiddo after all of that activity this weekend.

In other Ellie news, she can count to 12 and sign the entire ABC song without messing up. She learned it faster than I thought she would. Her biggest sentence is now "No, no Daddy. I don't like that." They teach them to say "I don't like that" at school so they can say it to another child instead of hauling off and hitting the other kid. My little genius also surprised me the other day when I was reading a book to her. It was an Easter book about hiding eggs and one egg was hidden in a bird's nest. I pointed at it and asked her what it was and she told me "a nest". Then I asked her what was in the nest and she said "a baby birdie". Kiddo already knows that baby birdies come from eggs. Genius. She's also all about getting the mail now. Every day when we get home, she runs to the stairs to see if the mailman has delivered anything. When there's not any down there she holds her hands up and shrugs and says "No mail?". I'm constantly amazed with the speed at which she learns things. Here she is saying "cheese".

Baby Emme

Ellie got to meet her new buddy this weekend, Emme Guerra. Emme was born to my friends Meg and Ruben on February 25 and she's so sweet. As I'm sitting here writing this, Ellie is in my lap pointing to the picture of Emme saying "Ellie's baby". So she must have liked her even though I think she has more fun with Ruben and the dogs. This is the best picture I could get of the two of them together...

We didn't do much the rest of the weekend. Since I'm going to be the Technology Chair for the Junior League next year, I met with the current chair and the new webmaster to start the transition. My parents kept Ellie again this weekend so Lee and I could go out on Saturday night. We saw Slumdog Millionaire, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture a few weeks ago. I was not as taken with it as I would have hoped, but it was still pretty good.

This last shot is one of Ellie on Friday night. She's getting to the point where she wants to have a little more say in what she wears. I don't know what she is going for with this look...

Chocolate Rain

I'm going to go ahead and tell you up front that I did not put Ellie down for a nap with a Jello chocolate pudding cup. While Ellie was supposed to be taking her nap, I was making our airline ticket reservations for Florida this summer. The ticket lady, Evelyn, was so nice and she started asking me all about Ellie and I said ," Oh, I hear in her her room now. She's supposed to be taking a nap, but she's started crying... let me check on her... OH MY GOD THERE IS CRAP EVERYWHERE! She has smeared poop everywhere!". And poor Evelyn was like ,"Oh no! Okay, honey. You go on and clean that up and call me back." So of course I hung up the phone and grabbed the camera. Most mothers would run to their child and start wiping, but not this mom. If Ellie smears poop all over the place, I am taking pictures of it and blogging about it. So now I have two confirmed pictures for her rehearsal dinner slide show: Ornament Boobs and Chocolate Rain. Keep it up, Ellie.

Last Wednesday was Ash Wednesday so we all got our ashes. Ellie could not figure out what was on our heads. I cannot wait until the weather warms up. It was sort of cold and windy around here this weekend so we stayed inside most of the time. That means finding indoor activities - like the mall. And apparently everyone else had that idea too because it was packed. We went so Ellie could watch the ducks and turtles at Northpark, but we wound up letting her make her own bear in the Build-A-Bear store. They have about 20 to choose from. She took her time evaluating all of her options and decided on a pink bear. They start out as unstuffed little shells and then you add everything. Ellie helped add the stuffing and then spent time playing in the accessories area. She did not let go of the bear for the next 24 hours so it created quite a lot of drama when Morgan decided to claim it as her own. Here she is stuffing the bear.

And here she is with the fully stuffed bear appropriately named "Pinky".

Ellie was so funny this morning. She grabbed her fingernail clippers, laid down on the changing table and held out her little hand with her fingers spread out as if I was her little Vietnamese manicure lady. And she's not even 2 yet. Ellie can now say the alphabet up to G and then she glosses over the other 19 letters and goes straight to "next time won't you sing with me". If you help her, she can do "QRSTUV". She can also count to 7. I hear her practicing in bed at night. We've been working on on teaching her who Jesus, Mary, and Joseph are, but I'm not sure she has all of the relationships straight. She knows that we go to church to see Jesus. As far as other religious teaching go, we're also teaching her how Obama is robbing Peter to pay Paul. It's important to distinguish the sinners from the saints.

On a sad note, my parents had to put their dog, Abby, to sleep last Thursday. They adopted her 10 years ago and she was a wonderful dog, but developed diabetes a few months ago and it was just too much for her little body. Ellie called her "Abby dog" and we're all going to miss her. She and Trudie were such good dog pals. I imagine they're happy to see each other again.

Class Photo

We just got back Ellie's class photo. She's on the right and she's not smiling. Her teachers are Kelsey, on the left, and Irma, on the right. Irma is her main teacher and Ellie loves Irma. Her good friend is Georgia. She's third from the left in the glasses. She's tiny. Ellie is probably a full head taller than her. Ellie has to hug her when we leave every day and talks about her at home. A character in one of Ellie's books wears glasses and when get to that picture, Ellie says ," Georgia glasses!". The little boy in the overalls is Liam and he tries to steal Ellie's food at mealtimes. My mom dropped off something for Ellie last week and was there during snacktime. When Ellie turned around to look at my mom, Liam grabbed her snack off her plate. Georgia grabbed it from Liam and gave it back to Ellie. Don't mess with a girl's food.

Future Aerobics Instructor

Happy Ash Wednesday!

Ellie's House

The camera drama continued this week, but I think I've resolved everything. I hope. As it turns out, the previously owned camera that I was using didn't have a flash that was operating at 100%. The camera would work if I was outside, but if I wanted to use it inside, I was going to have to buy an accessory flash. I tried taking it to several places to figure out how to make it work, but it was going to have to be repaired. So I sent it back and luckily the lady I bought it from was nice enough to take it back. Sort of a bummer because I liked the camera a lot. That left me with no camera again. So on Saturday, I decided to bite the bullet and purchase a brand new Canon EOS Rebel XS. I actually only had to purchase half of it because my parents were nice enough to pay for the other half as a late Christmas gift. So now I have my dream camera. And it works. And it takes the great pictures I've always wanted out of a camera. And I'm going to love it forever or at least until I leave it at the mall again. Just kidding, Lee. I won't do that.

After we got home from swimming lessons on Saturday, Ellie had a surprise waiting for her in the backyard. The sister-in-law of my co-worker, Jennifer, was looking to get rid of her daughter's play house so on Saturday, Lee and Jennifer's husband, Andy, picked up the play house and brought it over to our house. When we rounded the corner of the house and Ellie saw it, she sat in her stroller for a second speechless and then started screaming "Out! Out! Out!" for me to unbuckle her so she could play with it. She loves it. The only problem is that it's a bit hard to get her into the car in the morning because she sees it and wants to stay outside playing in "Ellie's house". That's what she calls it. I need to get her a little tea set so she can play house in it. Right now she runs in and out opening and closing the door and the windows.

My parents came over on Saturday and we went to the park to fly a kite. I bought a Sesame Street kite and was so excited about Ellie's first kite flying outing, but she was pretty uninterested. She was interested when the kite was on the ground and she liked the green tail attached to the end of it, but once it made its way into the air, she ran off. Out of sight, out of mind. So we made our way to the playground after about 5 minutes of kite flying. She is so over the little kid playground equipment and only wants to play on the park equipment that is designed for children five and older. This causes me anxiety, but she prefers the big slide much more now.

Saturday night my parents kept Ellie at their house while Lee and I went to Fort Worth to celebrate Katy's birthday at Cantina Laredo with about 14 other friends. Before dinner, Lee and I stopped at Wine Thief, the wine bar in the brand new Omni hotel. It was really nice and I had a great time at dinner catching up with everyone. Sunday we met one of Lee's high school friends from Chattanooga for lunch at Mi Cocina. She, her husband and her three kids were in town from Boston for a wedding. Ellie had her usual - a quesadilla - and surprised us when we asked her to say it and she could repeat it. It's funny hearing her little voice say "quesadilla". She can also put back on her shoes now... she's been taking them off for a while, but now in the mornings I get her all the way dressed except for her shoes and tell her to put them on. And she does it. I really like this picture I took on Saturday at the park - I think it's one of my favorites.

Valentine's Weekend 2009

I'm starting to think that 90% of good picture taking is having a good camera and the basic knowledge of how to use it. I snapped two pictures of Ellie at the park this weekend that are two of the better pictures I've taken of her in a while. Of course, it took me about 100 pictures to get these two, but I guess that's the beauty of digital photography. It's also nice to have a subject who is too young to scream, "Stop taking my picture, mom!".

Not much to report this weekend. It was Valentine's Day on Saturday. I'm not really a big celebrator of the holiday so we mostly stuck around the house. We had swimming lessons again on Saturday morning and my mom came to watch and she took some pictures. My dad was busy performing singing Valentine telegrams which he does every year with his singing group to raise money for Cooks Children's Hospital. Here's Ellie reaching for the stars - literally. You might not be able to tell, but she is kicking. I discovered a more advanced program taught by a private lady so I may start Ellie in those lessons this summer or even earlier. It would be nice if Ellie could swim to the side of the pool by herself.

That afternoon, I took Ellie to the park and then we stayed here for Valentine's Day dinner. Lee and I made a pact not to get each other gifts, but I went ahead and got a gift for both of us - Coldplay tickets. They're coming back in concert on July 21. The radio station Mix 102.9 was giving them away all week to the 20th caller, but I was every caller BUT the 20th. I was the 19th twice. This is the radio station that I won a ski trip from 4 years ago. It seems my luck for winning radio contests is slipping a bit.

In other Ellie news, she gave me her first unsolicited "thank you" this week. Since she started talking, I've been trying to teach her to say "please" and "thank you". Usually I have to prompt her for one or the other, but this week as we were getting ready for school, I handed her a cup of milk and she gave me a "sank ooh". Very cute.

My Best Friend

I was practicing with the settings on my new camera tonight and got some pictures of Ellie with her best friend...

Ellie LOVES the baby that I got her for her first birthday. She treats Baby like a real baby. As you can see, she blows her nose.

She reads to her.

Then she and Baby read to us.

Then she puts baby to bed.

She's already a good mom!

Our Grocery Getter

I got it!

Our blog is picture perfect again! I purchased a "new" camera this week. Actually, it's second hand, but that makes it new to me. I really wanted a super fancy new Canon Rebel SLR camera, but I decided that it would be a good idea for me to purchase a second hand one first for practice for a few years. And the one I got is perfect... it's just not the total latest and greatest technology. But that's okay. It's a great learning camera. I've always been really interested in photography, but have never made any steps to become a better photographer. Now I have and I'm really happy about it. I've got a book and I'm learning and I may even take a class once I exhaust the "SLR Camera for Dummies" book. So over the next year or so, you'll see my progression of photo skills... at least I hope that I progress!

The pictures I have on this blog are from a few nights ago when Ellie was feeding her fish. I really haven't had a chance to take many pictures outside of that lately. We started swimming lessons again this weekend, but I couldn't take pictures because I was in the water. Minor detail to taking pictures. Every time we go to the gym, Ellie has to go see the pool. I always have to keep one had on the back of her shirt just in case she has an immediate urge to swim. But I underestimated Ellie's excitement for the water. I got her dressed in her suit and walked her out to the pool, but once she realized that we were actually getting into the pool, she started screaming and squealing. Her favorite thing to do now is crawl out of the pool and jump back to me. Again and again. She gets these crazy eyes when she's about to jump so I was getting a kick out of watching her. I've never seen her so excited about something and I mean that. All of this excitement caused her to take a 2.5 hour nap.

I practice swimming strokes with her by throwing something out in front of her and then have her use her arms to pull it toward her. She's been putting together one or two words lately, but she's yet to make a full sentence. That changed on Saturday. I threw a football out in front of her and she grabbed it. I said, "did you get it?". She excitedly replied, "I got it!". I don't know if I was more happy that her swimming stokes were spot on or that she made a full sentence.

Other than the swimming lesson, we actually had a pretty busy weekend. I attended the Junior League's Volunteer fair this weekend and worked at a booth with my friend Elizabeth answering questions for a while. Then that night, we attended a wedding for our friends David and Amy. It was a beautiful wedding and instead of leaving the reception by the usual limo or classic car, the couple decided to leave the wedding via helicopter amidst fireworks. We weren't there to see it because the party wrapped up at midnight and we left around 11:00, but I heard it was spectacular.

It was also Ben's birthday last Wednesday, so we met for lunch at El Phoenix on Sunday to celebrate. Afterwards, we drove around looking at houses. We can't quite decide if we want to remodel the house we're in or move. Both are stressful decisions. I have to shut this down because I hear the tornado sirens going off. Hope we're not blown away!

Happy 2009!

Happy new year to everyone and yes, the sentiment is a full month late. If 2009 continues the way it's started, I'm going to buy a DeLorean, build a flux capacitor, and go back to 2008. I actually started this post 2 weeks ago, but just never got around to finishing it. And then the pressure built to write this enormous blog and I kept putting it off. But no more. I am back to blogging after this. One of the reasons I haven't been blogging is because I've been so busy but the other reason is because I lost my camera. We went to the Galleria about 3 weeks about to have dinner with the Hardemans and afterwards, we went to the third floor to the play area. As I was putting Ellie's shoes on to leave, I took the camera off my wrist and put in on the bench next to me. Ellie ran off and I jumped up to run after her and that was it. It was gone. I realized that I didn't have it on the way back to the house so I called the security office, but no. So all of the pictures in this post are courtesy of Stephanie since she did get some of Ellie that night. But the good news is that I bought another one so new pictures are on the way. Really and truly, I am back to blogging.

So what have we been doing... Ellie has two new pets. We are now the proud owners of two goldfish named Dorothy and NoNo. We bought a little 2-gallon aquarium for our new friends too. For those Sesame Street fans out there, you probably know that Elmo has a pet goldfish named Dorothy. So of course Ellie had to name one of the fish Dorothy. I have no clue why she named the other fish NoNo. I think she might have named it that in homage to her favorite word. She stands on her little stool and watches them swim and occasionally she tries to feed them a cracker through the glass.

She's been quite a character lately. About two weeks ago, we put Ellie to bed and I thought she had gone to sleep, but she started swalking after an hour. I went into her room to find her sans pajamas - but still in a diaper - thank goodness. I guess she's woken up and gotten undressed? We'll never know, but I was more than a little confused when I walked in the room and she handed me a pair of pajamas and I found a naked Ellie. We were a birthday party for Cooper, her school friend, last weekend and Ellie tried to jump in the pool. It was covered with a mesh leaf cover, but she still tried getting in. This resulted in a very wet Ellie since the pool cover only prohibited her from sinking and not from getting wet. I think she is very excited about swimming this summer because this afternoon I found her in her bathroom playing in her toilet (the real one) screaming "pool!!". If you know how much I am bothered by germs then you know how much this bothers me. We had to have the "potty is only for poo-poo and tee-tee" talk AGAIN. She's also learning new words exponentially and putting them together more. Like today I cut myself chopping onions so I put a bandage on my finger. She saw it and I told her that I was hurt and she pointed to my finger and said "mommy hurt". Or when I "forgot" to replace the batteries in her Elmo Live for a few days she would tell me "Elmo night-night". Yes, that's right, Ellie. Your very annoying talking animal is sleeping.

What else has happened... I hosted dual showers last weekend. A group of girls hosted a morning wedding shower at Meg's house for Bonnie and then in the evening we hosted a baby shower for Meg. I am learned that I am going to be on the Junior League's Leadership Council next year as the Technology Chair. Very excited about that one. I've been touring new schools for Ellie. I think where she is right now is okay but I may want to put her someplace else.

My good friend and college roommate Debbie had her second baby this week, a little girl named Sadie Scott. The delivery was fine, but Sadie was born with a genetic condition called Pfeiffer Syndrome that effects the appearance of her skull and eyes. She's going to have to have several surgeries, the first of which will be coming up in the next week or so. They've set up a site so that we can follow her progress. It's called Sadie's Site. I added it to my list of "Links" on the sidebar too. Debbie is such an amazing person and if God had told me he had a very special baby and asked me who should be her mother, I would have told him Debbie would be the best person for the job. I am asking that everyone pray for Sadie and for the Bono family.

Christmas 2008

If there's one thing I learned this Christmas, it's that being the first and only grandchild on both sides of the family means you score huge in the gift department. On Christmas Eve, we met the Brights at St. Michael's for the children's service in the basement. Ellie has a Little People Nativity Set and a book about Christmas that we've been reading, but she obviously hasn't figured out the whole birth of Jesus thing yet. She knows there was a baby, a star, an angel, and a donkey involved, but that's about it. After church, we went back to the Brights for dinner and opening presents. We let Ellie open all of hers first since she had to go to bed. Once she figured out that she was the recipient of many gifts, she started going nuts and screaming "Ooooooo!!" as she opened each gift. She got two babies, a stuffed doggie, some blocks, crayons, a puzzle, and a beautiful bracelet. Uncle Ben set up the train set which was a big hit with Ellie. It only took Ellie two hours to go to sleep... then the adults opened gifts downstairs.

We woke up at our house on Christmas morning. Santa brought Ellie a ride-on Elephant and an Elmo live. She really likes the elephant. It sings four different songs while she rocks on it. We made it over to my parents by 11AM where there were more festivities and she hit the motherload with the Elmo Restaurant, a gift from Grammie and Grandi. She LOVES the Elmo Restaurant. She saw it and immediately started cooking up a storm and has not stopped cooking since she received it. She has taken to putting her new baby in the oven which is troublesome, but maybe she thinks it's nice and dark for baby in there. She also likes handing out the money in the register to everyone.

We spent the afternoon of the 26th at the Dallas Museum of Nature and Science and the next day, we saw the Trains at Northpark. It is a nerd paradise of miniature trains. That have the trains running through scenes of Dallas, New York City, Washington DC, a forest, and a western town among other things. Ellie really enjoyed it and they had some trains at her level . Mom and I saw the movie Doubt on Saturday afternoon. It's getting lots of nominations for awards and such but it was sort of slow and disturbing.



Lee and I spent Sunday surveying what Ellie does and doesn't play with and making two piles - save and give to charity. The problem is that I would get something out she hadn't played with in six months and she'd act like it was the long lost toy she'd been missing and start playing with it. Half of her stuffed animals are getting the boot. Sometimes I wish we lived in the 1800s when children had a corn husk doll and a block of wood to play with. And they liked it. Now everything makes noise, is the size of a baby hippopotamus, and requires 4-AA batteries which have to be inserted using a Stewart Little-sized screwdriver.

So here we are at the end of 2008 and I am exhausted. I think I aged 5 years in the past 7 days. I feel like I'm recovering from Spring Break 1997 without all of the beer, vinyl pants, dance offs, and midgets. I don't know how I'm going to do it year after year... and especially the years when Ellie starts getting up at 5AM. When that starts, I'm going to stay in bed, set up the camcorder, and tell her to hit record when she gets up. At least I have 11 months to get geared up for the next season.

The Bright Family wishes you a happy and healthy 2009!

The Science Place

I took the day off the day after Christmas and Lee took the afternoon off, so after Ellie's nap, we took her to The Museum of Nature and Science in Fair Park. In the downstairs area, they have a ton of things for little ones to do. She loved driving the fire engine with Dad....

Picking veggies at the little farm...

Milking cows...

Harassing turtles...

Sailing boats...
It's all fun and games until we have to leave.

Poor Ellie.